Welcome to Read this Book, a newsletter where I recommend one book that needs to jump onto your TBR pile! This week, I’m discussing one of my most recent young adult mystery novels.
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Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley
Angeline Boulley is an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, and she writes about her Ojibwe community. In her second novel set on Sugar Island, which is located in Michigan’s upper peninsula, Boulley returns to the Firekeeper family. Warrior Girl Unearthed focuses on Perry Firekeeper-Birch, a 16-year-old Ojibwe girl who just wants to spend her summer days fishing on the island, her favorite place in the world.
But after crashing her car, Perry finds herself forced to join a summer internship program to earn enough money to pay for the repairs. While working for her tribe’s cultural center, she attends a trip to a local university, where she learns that the university is using a legal loophole to hold on to the human remains of people from her nation. In particular, Perry is appalled by the museum curator’s smug attitude at keeping a complete set of remains referred to as “Warrior Girl.” Leaving the museum, and Warrior Girl, behind, Perry becomes determined to return Warrior Girl to her people.
Warrior Girl Unearthed is a crime novel in two ways. Perry learns the history of the horrific treatment of Indigenous human remains and ceremonial objects. The crimes that the U.S. government has enacted upon her people drive Perry’s sense of justice and determination to right this wrong. Perry and the other high school students in her internship program also take part in searches and advocacy to raise awareness for the Murdered Missing Indigenous Women, Girls, and two-spirits people (MMIW). During the course of the novel, several young women go missing, and she begins to suspect that the most recent disappearances are all connected.
Perry is such a captivating character, full of a fiery spirit and heart, always trying to help her family and community. Isabella Star LeBlanc narrates the audiobook edition, bringing an incredible sense of emotional depth to her performance of Perry’s point-of-view. So if you’re an audiobook listener, then this is definitely one you’ll want to pick up on audio.
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That’s it for this week! You can find me over on my substack Winchester Ave, over on Instagram @kdwinchester, or on my podcast Read Appalachia. As always, feel free to drop me a line at kendra.d.winchester@gmail.com. For even MORE bookish content, you can find my articles over on Book Riot.
Happy reading, Friends!
~ Kendra